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GFS tennis takes Drakes to go 9-0

GFS senior Olivia Fiechter tosses the ball to hit a serve during last week’s successful visit to Jenkintown High School. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

by Tom Utescher

The Germantown Friends girls took a break from league competition in tennis last Wednesday, venturing over to Jenkintown High School to record a 5-0 victory over the Lady Drakes. The Tigers lost just one game in the three singles and two doubles matches, and the win kept them undefeated this fall, at 9-0 overall.

Four of those victories have come within the Friends Schools League, where Germantown has already faced the other two top contenders for the title, beating Shipley School, 3-2, and Friends Central, 4-1.

Four matches into the battle against defending FSL champ Shipley, the teams were tied at 2-2, with the Tigers taking both doubles bouts, and the Gators capturing the first and third singles contests.

GFS was now relying on senior number two Olivia Fiechter, a national team squash player who had just finished competing in a major tournament a day earlier. Finishing out the match with a tiebreaker, Fiechter was able to win in straight sets for the team victory.

Last Wednesday at Jenkintown she was the first player to finish, recording a 6-0, 6-0 decision over Lady Drakes junior Molly Dorshimer. At first singles, Tigers junior Joanna Booth turned in the same scores as she went by fellow 11th-grader Julia Abriola of the host team. Booth did not play on the GFS team last season, but was Germantown’s number one player in 2011, when the Tigers won the FSL crown.

Jenkintown is one of the smallest public schools in the Delaware Valley, and competes in the Bicentennial League. Entering Wednesday’s bout, the Lady Drakes were 5-9 overall, and with several players injured or ill, they found rough going against a strong GFS squad.

Rounding out a singles sweep for the Tigers, again with scores of 6-0, 6-0, was sophomore Sophie Bunson, who defeated senior Kelsey Nusbaum. At first doubles, the performance of seniors Hannah Ceisler and Emma Clark was not quite flawless, but they easily got by junior Jess Cartwright and senior Avery Shink of Jenkintown, 6-1, 6-0.

With four courts available, the second doubles duos could not begin playing immediately, but when space opened up, GFS juniors Ann Carpenter and Emily Abbott quickly proceeded to a 6-0, 6-0 victory over the home team’s tandem, sophomores Sophie Mullins and Oonagh Kligman.

A third doubles bout was played on as an exhibition match, and this turned out to be the closest encounter of the afternoon. The Tigers, senior Nicoline Arlet and sophomore Eliza Cohen, won the first set at 7-5 over Jenkintown’s Federici sisters, Olivia (a senior) and Bella (a sophomore). This was the last match of the day, and instead of a full second set, a super-tiebreaker was played, with GFS prevailing, 10-6.